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The mushroom cloud of an atom bomb rises among abandoned ships in Bikini lagoon on July 1, 1946 after the bomb was dropped from the Super Fortress "Dave's Dream." This photo was made from a tower on the Bikini Island by a remote control camera automatically recording the test blast. (AP Photo/Joint Task Force One)

This Sept. 1971 file photo shows of a nuclear bomb detonated at the Mururoa atoll, French Polynesia. The French government is offering compensation to thousands of people who suffered health problems as a result of nuclear tests in Algeria and the South Pacific, the French Defense Minister Herve Morin said Tuesday March 24, 2009. (AP Photo)

A massive column of water rises from the sea as the U.S. detonate an atom bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the first underwater test of the device, July 25, 1946. (AP Photo)

In this photo released by the Inter Services Public Relations department shows testing of a Pakistan-made cruise missile at undisclosed location in Pakistan, Thursday, July 26, 2007. Pakistan said it successfully test-fired a cruise missile capable of delivering nuclear war heads deep into India. (AP Photo/Inter service Public Relations Department,HO)

A huge mushroom cloud rises above Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands July 25, 1946 following an atomic test blast, part of the U.S. military's "Operation Crossroads." The dark spots in foreground are ships that were placed near the blast site to test what an atom bomb would do to a fleet of warships. (AP Photo/file)

A Trident II rocket lifts off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station April 29, 1987 in the third straight successful launch of the U.S. Navy's most powerful weapon. The Trident system was put into operation in 1989 and has the capability of carrying 10 nuclear warheads. (AP photo/Phil Sandlin)

French atomic test explosion at the South Pacific Mururoa Atoll, France in June 1970. (AP Photo)

Nuclear bomb testing 1945. (AP-PHOTO/HO)

This photo made by a U.S. Army automatic newsreel camera, shows the test explosion of the world's first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, N.M., on July 16, 1945. The test, known as Trinity, of the plutonium bomb capped a $2 billion effort, unprecedented in those times. (AP Photo)

In this photo provided by the Indian Press information Bureau, the nuclear-capable surface-to-surface Prithvi missile takes off from the missile testing range at Chandipur, India, Friday, March 11, 2011. India has tested two versions of its short-range missiles capable of carrying both conventional and nuclear warheads, a defense ministry official. The Prithvi missile, which can hit targets up to 185 miles (295 kilometers) away, is already in use by the Indian army. (AP Photo/Press Information Bureau)

This view is just after the detonation of the first atomic bomb, a $2,000,000,000 experiment, July 16, 1945 at a remote location on the U.S. Army Airbase at Alamo-Gordo, New Mexico. The huge cloud surged and billowed with tremendous power into the sub-stratusphere and windows rattled 250 miles away. This picture was made with an automatic movie camera six miles away. (AP Photo)

This time exposure photo released by the U.S. Air Force showing an Air Force Global Strike Command Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile being launched on Wednesday, Nov. 14, 2012. The military says an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile was blasted from a silo at the West Coast's Vandenberg Air Force Base and successfully reached a target area 4,200 miles away in the Pacific Ocean. (AP Photo/U.S. Air Force, Levi Riendeau)

The first U.S. atom bomb explodes during a test in Alamogordo, N.M., July 16, 1945. The cloud went 40,000 feet in the air, as viewed by an automatic camera six miles away from the site. (AP Photo)

A mushroom-topped column of smoke and gas, brighter than the sun, rises through a disintegrating vapor cloud over Bikini Lagoon in the aerial bomb test July 1, 1946. Because of the brightness, no part of the column is in the shadow of the sun which is shining across Bikini at the left. The cloud ring is the remains of the cloud of vapor, or fog, which enveloped the fireball the instant after the explosion. The cloud disappeared quickly. The shock wave, visible as a circle around the explosion area, is about half way to Bikini Island, approximately three miles from the point of explosion. (AP Photo)

In this photo provided by the Defence Research & Development Organization, Indian Missile Dhanush takes off from a Naval ship in the Bay of Bengal sea near Chandipur coast, about 200 kilometers from Bhubaneswar, India, Friday, Oct. 5, 2012. India successfully test-fired the indigenously developed nuclear-capable, short-range ballistic missile from a naval ship off its eastern coast, according to a news agency. The missile has a strike range of 350 kilometers and can carry a 500 kilogram conventional or nuclear warhead, the news agency cited a Defense Research & Development Organization official. (AP Photo/Biswaranjan Rout, Defence Research & Development Organization)

Students set off a simulated atomic bomb explosion during classroom study of atomic energy at Anacostia High School in Washington D.C., March 25, 1950. The explosion was made by igniting a mixture of Sulfur and Zinc with a high frequency spark and the model houses are used to compare the size of the smoke cloud. The students are, left to right: Charles Jones, Joan Collinge and Charles Williams. (AP Photo/Henry Burroughs)

The small fireball at the outset of the blast caused by the dropping of a bomb from a plane in an unknown location on Nov. 5, 1951. (AP Photo)

In this photo provided by Inter Services Public Relations, a short-range Ghazanvi missile is launched from an undisclosed location in Pakistan on Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008. Pakistan's military said Wednesday it has successfully test-fired the short-range missile, which has a range of 290 kilometers (180 miles) and is capable of carrying a nuclear device. (AP Photo/Inter Services Public Relations)

The mushroom cloud of an atomic bomb rises above Nevada's Yucca Flat April 22, 1952. Some 1,500 civilian observers, news people, ground soldiers and paratroopers in the air witnessed the blast. (AP Photo)

U.S. Soldiers watch the mushroom cloud from the atomic explosion at Yucca flats in Nevada, April 22, 1952. The atomic cloud rises into the sky shortly after the detonation. Earlier these soldiers occupied foxholes less than five miles from ground zero. (AP Photo)

The sea close to the shore of Fangataufa Atoll, about 750 miles from the French Polynesian capital of Papeete, in the South Pacific turns white following the detonation of an underground French nuclear test in this image taken from French Military footage, Sunday October 1, 1995. The test, the second detonated by France in a month, measured more than five times stronger than the 20 kiloton earlier test, carried out on Sept. 5 on the neighboring Atoll of Mururoa. (AP Photo/TV)

Troops of the U.S. Sixth Army, stationed at Camp Desert Rock, advance on the "enemy" moments after an atomic blast at Yucca Flats, near Las Vegas, Nev., June 1, 1952 This blast concluded troop maneuvers in conjunction with atomic operations at the Nevada proving grounds. (AP Photo/HO)

A Minuteman III missile flaming into the sky from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Lompoc, California on July 28, 1971, represents only a fraction of the enormous nuclear arsenal controlled by Strategic Air Command from its headquarters at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska. SAC's motto is "Peace is our profession." The argument is that SAC, which observed its quarter century mark this year, can keep the nuclear peace--but only if it stays the faster gun in the frontier atmosphere of world power politics. (AP Photo)

In this Sept. 14, 1952 file photo, a dust cloud rises from a British nuclear bomb test in Maralinga, Australia. (AP Photo, file)

This Dec. 4, 1989 file photo shows the launch of a Trident II, D-5 missile from the submerged USS Tennessee submarine in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida. As of mid-2010, 12 operational U.S. nuclear-missile submarines carry a total of 288 Trident missiles. (AP Photo/Phil Sandlin)

Mannequins seated at a table in the dining room of house number two, attend a "dinner party" thrown by Civil Defense officials that are testing the effects of an atomic explosion on houses and occupants on March 15, 1953. The first in a series will be held at the atomic proving grounds near Las Vegas, Nev. No one knows what will happen when the bomb goes off a mile and a half away, but officials hope most of this will remain standing. (AP Photo/Dick Strobel)

A Pershing II ED-4 single stage missile takes off at the McGregor Range, Ft. Bliss, TX, March 13, 1983. (AP Photo/US Army HO)

Stretched on a bed, in an upstairs bedroom of house number two, is a mannequin ready to test the effects of an atomic explosion at the atomic proving grounds near Las Vegas, Nev., March 15, 1953. Thorough the window a mile and a half away stands a 300 foot steel tower atop which the bomb will be detonated. The purpose of the test blast is to show Civil Defense officials what would happen in an American city if it were subjects to a atomic attack. (AP Photo/Dick Strobel)

Official military observers and U.S. congressmen watch the mushroom cloud form on Frenchman flag, a moment after history's first atomic artillery shell was fired in Las Vegas, Nev., May 25, 1953. Among the observers are Secretary Defense Charles E. Wilson and Admiral Arthur W. Radford, new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (AP Photo/Department of Defense)

Hillman Lee, manager of a department store, is surrounded by mannequins and mannequin parts which endured an atomic blast while in the basement bomb shelter of house number one at the Nevada proving grounds near Las Vegas, Nev., March 17, 1953.. Most of the mannequins are battered and show evidence of their experience. They were brought back to Las Vegas after the test. (AP Photo)

News correspondents and civil defense representatives observe the detonation of a nuclear device on Enewetak Atoll, Marshall Islands, May 4, 1956. Those without dark glasses have turned away from the initial glare from the explosion, which provided illumination for this photograph. (AP Photo/DOD)

The stem of the hydrogen bomb first such nuclear device dropped from a U.S. aircraft, moves upward through a heavy cloud and comes through the top of the cloud shortly after the bomb was detonated over Namu Island in the Bikini Atoll on May 21, 1956 (Bikini Atoll time). This photograph was taken from aboard the USS Mt. McKinley, observer vessel about 36 miles from the blast site. (AP Photo)

Russia continued testing of giant nuclear explosions in the atmosphere so the United States resumed its own tests. The now familiar atomic explosion mushroom rose over Christmas Island in the Equatorial Pacific during U.S. experiments. This bomb was exploded from a plane. (AP Photo/Oakland Tribune)

A mushroom cloud rises over the Nevada Test Site (NTS) after the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) detonated a low-yield nuclear weapons effects test in Mercury, Nev., 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, July 11, 1962. The device fired underground at a depth shallow enough to form a crater. (AP Photo)

A column of debris and smoke rises from the atomic testing grounds northwest of Las Vegas, Nev., July 14, 1962. The firing of the atomic device was the first large scale nuclear explosion in the atmosphere at the testing grounds since tests were suspended in 1958. (AP Photo)

The mushroom cloud of an atomic explosion billows skywards as Communist China tests its first atomic bomb, on October 16, 1965. (AP Photo)

A dust cloud rises from a crater after an underground nuclear test at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory in Los Alamos, N.M., USA, on Dec. 3, 1969. (AP Photo)

In this Dec. 12, 2012 file image made from video, North Korea's Unha-3 rocket lifts off from the Sohae launching station in Tongchang-ri, North Korea. North Korea's top governing body warned Thursday, Jan. 24, 2013 that the regime will conduct its third nuclear test in defiance of U.N. punishment, and made clear that its long-range rockets are designed to carry not only satellites but also warheads aimed at striking the United States. (AP Photo/KRT via AP Video, File)

Two soldiers look at an atomic cloud during a nuclear bomb testing in Nevada in this 1952 file photo. Newly declassified Pentagon records show that troop exercises during nuclear bomb tests in the 1950s were designed to pursued soldiers their fear of radiation was irrational and to give them "an emotional vaccination" to the blasts. It has been widely known for decades that soldiers were deliberately exposed to radiation during exercises starting in 1951 at the Nevada nuclear test range. The new documents open a window into the reasoning by military leaders in then-secret discussions about how far to go in using GI's in the tests. (AP Photo/files)

This is an aerial view taken from video provided by the French military of Fangatuafa Atoll in the South Pacific where France set off their sixth and possibility their last nuclear test Saturday, Jan. 27, 1996. The series of nuclear tests have sparked off worldwide condemnation. (AP Photo/French Military)

Observers watch an atomic nuclear blast in this March 23, 1955 file photo. The National Cancer Institute said Friday, August 1, 1997 that fallout from 1950s nuclear bomb tests exposed millions of children across the country to radioactive iodine, raising the possibility that 10,000 to 75,000 of them might develop thyroid cancer. But government doctors emphasized they have no proof this radioactive substance causes thyroid cancer, so their estimate is a worst-case scenario. Nobody was tested in the NCI study. (AP Photo/File)

Television screens show a news broadcast on North Korea's nuclear test at an electronics store in Seoul, South Korea, on Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. North Korea held its third nuclear test today, underscoring a disregard for an international community that has already isolated the totalitarian state from the global economy. Photographer: SeongJoon Cho/Bloomberg

A South Korean soldier watches a TV screen reporting seismic waves of North Korea's nuclear test at Seoul train station in Seoul, South Korea, Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2013. Defying U.N. warnings, North Korea on Tuesday conducted an underground nuclear test in the remote, snowy northeast, taking a crucial step toward its goal of building a bomb small enough to be fitted on a missile capable of striking the United States. (AP Photo/Lee Jin-man)

Photos: Nuclear bomb and missile tests

WASHINGTON—U.S. intelligence officials say North Korea's nuclear test yielded an explosion of "approximately several kilotons." In a statement Tuesday, February 12,2013, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence said North Korea "probably conducted an underground nuclear explosion in the vicinity of P'unggye." It said the explosion yield was "approximately several kilotons" and that analysis of the event is continuing. South Korea's Defense Ministry said it detected an estimated explosive yield of 6-7 kilotons. President Barack Obama called North Korea's action "highly provocative" and said it threatens U.S. security and international peace.
Here is a selection of photos of nuclear bomb tests and missile launches including world's first atomic bomb at Alamagordo, N.M., on July 16, 1945. The test was known as Trinity.